Sunday, April 10, 2011

Bizarre Stories of People Getting Stuck - Part 1

The burglar who got stuck in the vents

Trapped in an air shaft and screaming for help, a grease-covered burglar was rescued after he got caught in the duct as he tried to break into a pizza parlor. It took nearly 30 minutes to free a recently paroled burglar who was trapped in a ventilation duct and screaming for help as he dangled over a deep fryer at Paesan's Pizza. Timothy J. Cipriani was covered in grease when they rescued him from the too-tight air duct at the 2513 Guilderland Ave restaurant. A second person may have been involved but disappeared from the scene before officers arrived. Cipriani, 46, was charged with burglary and possession of burglar tools after police said they found the lower half of his body swinging above the still-hot fryer at 1 a.m. Cipriani broke into the building by scaling a nearby tree and cracking into the air ducts from the roof with a hammer. In his mugshot, Cipriani's face, white T-shirt and jeans were coated in grease and grime. (Link | Via )

The man whose wheelchair got stuck to a truck and got a 4-mile ride

A 21-year-old man got the ride of a lifetime when his electric wheelchair became lodged in the grill of a semitrailer and was pushed down a highway for several miles at about 50 mph. Ben Carpenter was unharmed but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He had been secured to his wheelchair by a seat belt. Carpenter, who has muscular dystrophy, told a television station that he thought he might not make it through the ride.

Carpenter had started to cross at an intersection in Paw Paw, about 140 miles west of Detroit. The light changed to green while his son was in front of a semi, which started moving. The wheelchair's handles became lodged in the grille, the father said, and the wild ride started.

Motorists called police on their cell phones, and a pair of undercover police officers who happened to be nearby saw what was happening. They pulled the truck over and told the disbelieving driver, Donald Carpenter said. The chair was undamaged except for losing most of the rubber on its wheels.

The man who got stuck in mud for 4 hours because he was too embarrassed to call for help

Twenty-five-year-old Xiao Chen sunk up to his waist in mud at the edge of the Chang Jiang River in China one night. Although he had a cell phone with him, he was too embarrassed about his predicament to call for rescue! He tried to get himself out for four hours before asking for assistance from passing fishermen. The fishermen then summoned professional help.

It then took emergency services a further seven hours to actually get him free. Their task was made more difficult due to further embarrassment on Xiao's part – despite the fact that a crew of firemen all stripped down to their underwear to help in the rescue, he refused to undo his own trousers so that he could be more easily pulled free from the mud.

The man who got stuck in a toilet trying to retrieve his cell phone

A man in Jiangsu Province, China, got stuck in a toilet when he dropped his phone inside and tried to get it back. When rescue workers arrived on the scene in Jiangsu province in eastern China, they found the man crouched over the toilet in a bathroom stall, his entire arm submerged up to the shoulder in the drain. Workers broke the porcelain bowl with crowbars and hammered the pipes, taking care not to injure the man.

After 10 minutes of work, the man was able to slowly remove his cut and bruised arm from the bowl and retrieve his waterlogged phone.

The 18 people who got stuck upside down on a roller coaster

Eighteen people who rode a roller coaster in Anhui, China, got more than they bargained for: they got stuck upside down for half an hour when strong winds caused the roller coaster to stop on its track!

Strong winds brought a roller coaster to a halt at the top of its loop at a fun park in Anhui, province in east China, leaving 18 people hanging upside down for about half an hour with six of them falling ill. All the six persons were sent to a hospital and were discharged later.

The equipment was in good condition and the weather was suitable when the coaster began its journey but a sudden gust halted it, which was then locked to the loop by safety devices, with the passengers hanging upside down. Zhang Shengying, Deputy Director of the Wuhu Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, said investigation showed that the accident had been caused by “extreme weather” at the amusement park.